Boxed Set

As newsletter readers already know, I put together a boxed set of my first two series, the City Complications and City Entanglements, so five novellas and two novels in one convenient package for ereading. If you not yet read these, it’s a great deal and for this first week I’m pricing it at 9.99 and making it available at most etailers. After that, I’m going to bump the price up a bit to 12.99, still cheaper than buying individually. It’s available in several e-bookstores, links available here. Content notes for all my stories are available here.

The Reason Rest is Resistance

I read a post that was, to sum up a more nuanced thing, about how rest is not resistance, it's a privilege not afforded equally in capitalism. Now I am not linking, because this is not intended as a dunk. But having read Tricia Hersey's Rest is Resistance, that was kind of the point. Capitalism makes rest hard, (again summing up an entire book here, go read the book). So finding rest, demanding rest, became resistance. 

I am quite sure there are plenty of people who are posting self care pics, with a #RestIsResistance, which is not quite the same. Obviously social media is not an accurate measure of anyone's life. But if anyone has taken away from the tagline rest is resistance the idea that their pedicure is social justice, then yes, that is wrong. I don't think anyone really thinks that. I know I've joked about stimulating the economy by buying things. But I am well aware that my individual purchases, while important, have limited reach. And also that if the economy is good, but I am in debt, no one is coming to fix my debt for me. 

But, on this week that contains a holiday for USians, some people will still have to work. And since I have the privilege of a day off of work, part of my plans involve rest. Because rest is important. 

Wherever you are, I wish you rest and yummy food in whatever measure you can get it. 

Three Interesting Things

1.  It turns out colds might really be because of cold. 

2. Fire has impacted three small businesses in Alexandria, including what had briefly been the area's first romance bookstore.

3. This story of a train trip from Chicago to Miami (which I have funnily enough done in reverse) was fascinating. 

All Kinds of Writer Fuel

I wrote my characters into a corner last week and my writing pace slowed. For me, a few things are true. My pace varies. A slow day or two, I can usually rebound form pretty easily. When it starts being multiple days of a slower pace, it gets a little harder to pick the pace back up. 

Sometimes life if just like that. I had a busy week at the day job, and sometimes that just sucks up too much of my brain. 

It's also true that when I'm writing and working, I also read and watch TV less. And scroll social media more. My theory is that this is the smaller version of I don't have time to watch a movie, so I'll watch TV. Each social media post is small, so it seems a smaller lift, even though an hour of scrolling could be an hour of something else. 

A writing workshop instructor once said, if you're stuck read something. It will either inspire you to write something that good or annoy you enough to think I write better than that. Which ha. But I finally finished a book Friday that I adored, and one that I was annoyed by Sunday. And I got my writing back up to pace Saturday and Sunday. Now sure, having more time to write helped too.

But a lot of it was remembering I don't just need to feed and water myself, I also have to get some good stories into my brain. Social media sometimes provides that, and it is certainly useful for connections and other such things. But a media diet with a little more variety works best for me. 

Three Interesting Things

1.  Alan Sepinwall interviewed Aldis Hodge. 

2. There's a Black Romance Author Event - BRAE going on with free and discounted ebooks by Black romance authors. 

3. And there are some items up for auction - the auction is fundraising for Trans Lifeline.

We are the Infrastructure

One of the things that becomes true over and over when you pay attention to things that go wrong is some combination of things thing was built X number of years ago, before Y thing became more common, and now the rare Z circumstance combined to make a historic disaster.

It's often the case in everything from home repair shows to things like a ginormous ship toppling a 30 year old bridge. I watched one home repair show where after the initial assessment one of the contractors was chasing down an issue and in looking into that realized that a previous builder had cut into the floor joists and now the entire second floor needed to be torn down. The contractor showed the homeowner and said that it would actually be cheaper and safer to demolish this house and build a new one. That repairing this was possible but it would take millions of dollars and lots of time, and if they didn't love this house enough, they could absolutely find a new house for less than the cost of the repairs. 

And the same is often true of systems. This is not to say the government doesn't exist or work, but we all know it doesn't work for everyone all the time. And sure, there are charities and non-profits that fill in some of those gaps. But when Mr. Rogers famously talked about looking for the helpers, he meant us. We, the adults, are the helpers. 

And there is so much that needs help right now. There's lots of ways to plug in, whether it's donating money, or skills, or time. We are the infrastructure. It's us. 

Three Interesting Things

1. Apparently bees in the US are doing better, which is nice. 

2. Animals in the airport seems like such a cool idea. 

3. I love everything about this, Tony Hawk posted a picture of a skater in the 1970's and someone tracked her down.

7 Things About Drafting

I spent the weekend jumping into various virtual write-ins.  Lots of folks between the Rough Draft Challenge, and various other challenges going on in November are working on words.  And if you want to join me drafting, you can click that contact button and I'll get the invites and links to you. 

But I've been sharing thoughts about writing every November, so let's get to it. 

1.  It's easier for me to write with company.  What that company looks like has changed over the years.  I used to do in person write ins, because dragging all my stuff somewhere meant I was going to go home with words.  These days I do virtual write ins, and even sometimes just sprint with the discord bot.  It's useful to me.  It helps me get my butt to the writing chair instead of sitting on the couch.  Some people will tell you needing company or some sort of external thing to write makes you not a real writer.  Those people should not be trusted. 

2. A writer friend of mine said she tries not to listen to too many people about writing because she does not need extra voices in her brain telling her how to write.  I am always so curious about people's process, but I also wrote for several years before I started seeking out other writer people, so I had a good sense of my voice.  Plus I find that sometimes hearing some process that is decidedly not for me, helps me hone in what processes might be for me. Neither of us are right or wrong in our choices, there are so many ways to draft.  If you're making words, then it's working. 

3. One thing you might have noticed, was I started my draft so that Rough Draft Challenge and Global Write In call happened after I had been writing for about two weeks.  That was intentional.  For me, about two weeks in - depending on pace, things slow down.  So I planned to have the things that would encourage me to keep up my pace happen right as I knew my pace might lag.

4. There are limits to how much you can trick your brain. If you plan too many high value days, your brain and sometimes your body will protest.  There's a lot of writers who had to learn a lot about their own personal ergonomics.  And sometimes the best solution is to write a little less each day. 

5. I do not think of myself as a morning person.  But I do wake up just before my alarm pretty regularly.  And usually my cat shows up around then too, since no one has pet her for six to eight hours at that point.  (Oh, the sadness.)  But I do then grab my phone and write a few words for the story.  Sometimes it's like ten.  Sometimes I end up not using it because I forgot where they were or what they were doing when I left them the day before.  But those words help me think about my characters.  So that whether it's a day when the writing happens after breakfast or after work, I've been thinking about them already and jumping in is a little easier.

6. I used to think all the words I ended up cutting from my first draft were a waste.  I have come to realize they are all attempts to get the story moving and that sometimes the turns I discover were wrong turns are just as important in getting me to where the story needed to go.  Writing doesn't come with a GPS.  Having to make a U turn or to exit the highway isn't a failure, it's part of the journey.  For those of you who plot, same with those extra plot points it turned out the characters refused to use. 

7. Writing is hard work and we haven't even touched the what happens next part.  But if the writing bug is calling to you, you can do it.  As much as we complain we like it, I swear.